For San Diego's delegation, a tough decision on debt deal

The U.S. debt ceiling drama came to an end Tuesday with President Barack Obama signing the legislation into law, a bill that was described as “the best of no good alternatives.”

For a divided San Diego congressional caucus - three voted for the bill, two against - it was a hard decision to make. Three members of San Diego's delegation talked to us about their decision.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine

Hunter, one of the 66 House Republicans who voted against the bill late Monday, voiced concerns on the likelihood that the special committee created under the plan will fail to reach an agreement and therefore “trigger” $600 billion in defense budget cuts.

“I see a high possibility that the budget ‘trigger’ would kick in,” Hunter said. “A ‘yes’ vote would be voting for tax increases and possible defense cuts, and a ‘no’ vote would ensure that the sequestration kicks in. We are going to be voting either for a bad deal, or a really bad deal.”

The debt-ceiling increase will be done in two phases:

The first phase includes $917 billion in savings, including a roughly $420 billion reduction in the national security budget. The cuts would be accompanied by a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling.

If the super committee cannot agree on how to achieve the required $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction or if Congress fails to approve the committee's recommendations by December 23, an automatic across-the-board spending cuts of $1.2 trillion, equally split between defense and non-defense spending, would be triggered.

“If the sequestration gets kicked in, our military is going to be gutted, completely gutted,” Hunter said. “We can’t go to Japan when they have a nuclear disaster, we can’t go to Haiti if they have a natural disaster, and we can’t send our navy to the Mediterranean to help out with earthquakes in Italy. We simply won’t have the navy ships, the personnel or the equipment to do what the American people expect the military to do, and that’s to keep us safe in the homeland and protect our allies.”

Hunter even said he might have voted in favor of the bill if it mandated a balanced budget amendment – a legislation that would make Congress spend only what it takes in -- which Hunter considers as “the only way out of this mess.”

“Every family has to do it, every business has to do it, and the American government should have to do it too,” Hunter said.

Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego

Davis, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, supported the bill, hoping that the “breathing room” created in this bill will lead to a better solution, and in a bipartisan fashion.

Davis said that “there is definitely room to cut” because “the defense budget has doubled over the past 10 years and now makes up nearly 20 percent of the federal budget.”

According to Davis, potential cuts in military spending will not affect the U.S. military in carrying out humanitarian missions and protecting the homeland. She emphasized that the U.S. is sharing the cost on its international obligations with its partner countries.